Saralee Says
Jane Fonda is one of the most controversial people in modern times. People have very strong feelings about her — they are either fans or enemies.
My Life So Far by Fonda (Random House) is divided into three parts. “Act One — Gathering” details her childhood. Her father, Henry, was a respected stage and movie star. Her brother, Peter, starred in and produced the cult movie, Easy Rider and her niece, Bridgett, is a noted 30-something film actor. Her mother, Frances, committed suicide when Fonda was a young girl. Her father considered Jane too chunky, which resulted in Fonda’s more than 30 years of bulimia.
She married three very different men and her theme throughout the book is that she tried to be whatever her husband wanted her to be in order to secure that man’s affection. She was married from 1965-1973 to the French movie director Roger Vadim and he directed her in the movie, Barbarella. Vadim treated her like a sex kitten, both on and off the movie set, and Fonda readily admits she tried to accommodate him.
“Act Two — Seeking” covers her political beliefs; the years of marriage to her second husband (1973-1990), radical political activist Tom Hayden; as well as the years of her most recent marriage (1991-2001) to the founder of CNN, Ted Turner. The last section, “Act Three — Beginning,” deals with what has happened to Fonda since she turned 60.
I could not put this book down and was captivated by how such a successful businesswoman could self-destruct every time she married. My favorite parts are her narration of her religious conversion and how that has changed her beliefs and her self-esteem.
Fonda met Nashville’s own Dolly Parton when they filmed the movie 9 to 5 and they have remained friends. There are heartwarming stories about these two women including their bus trip across the South as Parton introduced Fonda to real Southerners.
What did you think of Fonda’s explanation of her visit to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War? Do your feelings about that mean you will buy or boycott this book?
I was struck about how much she changed herself each time she fell in love. For someone who portrayed such strong women in her movies, she describes herself as having very low self-esteem.
Hopefully, her spiritual journey and religious beliefs will help bring her and those around her peace during the last part of her life.
Larry’s Language
The Hollywood scandal magazines will not like My Life So Far. The 599 pages in this epic length book reveal very little gossip and very little that all of us did not already know in Fonda’s public life.
This is not a biography or memoir that discloses her innermost feelings. Instead the births, marriages, awards, celebrations, protests, and causes are always external to Fonda — almost as if they are happening to someone else while she observes and acts. It’s as if she plays a role as an actor starring in the part rather than living her life. Maybe this is understandable considering her childhood where her father neglected her and her mother abandoned her.
That leads to all the psycho babble that Fonda seems to use on every other page of the book. Not that there is anything wrong with therapy, counseling and good psychology, but Fonda does not seem to have benefited much from her lifetime of self and professional analysis.
According to Fonda, she has bounced from one issue to another all her life — serving as Miss Army Recruiting 1959, adopting French new wave attitudes, leading New Left political causes, cheering Atlanta Braves baseball and committing to religion — because other people have told her to do so.
In many ways Fonda is no different from any other poor little rich girl who is neglected at an early age by both parents but raised in a home of privilege, power and wealth by others. Fonda has issues, about food, her father, Freud, and foolish, self-destructive personal behavior.
This fascinating book demands to be read because Fonda was involved in so many cultural and political events from the 1960s to the present such as the women’s movement, civil rights, the anti-war movement, the sexual revolution, and is an Oscar award winning actor. Of course, I am prejudiced against Fonda since her foolish and wrongful conduct in Vietnam made it so difficult for my colleagues and me who were organizing anti—war demonstrations at home.
Join us for our next Book Club discussion, which will feature Legacy of Masks (Bantam) by Nashville author Sallie Bissell.
